Exactly what you were hoping for, give or take.

Tom and I talked about this yesterday on the show, before (after?) playing Thunder Equals Lava‘s “Cry, Robot” (which ruled). Here’s a link to an article about Sherry Turkle, who researches social technology, and the story of how she developed a crush on a robot named Cog. And here’s a link to Bob the Angry Flower, showing him to be years ahead of the curve once again.

The gist: from children’s toys to more sophisticated robots, we humans have this thing for making machines that are programmed to interact with us in human ways, stuff like turning to face us when we speak to them and badgering us for our attention – basic, but effective. We’re such gullible sorts, even though we know there’s nothing really going on inside our contraptions, we totally allow ourselves to get suckered in by their programming. Turkle worries that we’re not properly equipped to deal with all this. The 68Comeback Special worries about this as well, especially if (when) Skynet achieves consciousness and decides that it’s the machines that should be running the show. If it figures out how easy it is to lie to us, too…